ABSTRACT
How should one write about love? Or can one ever write about love without writing also, if not more, about life-and death? What about power, gender, economy, beauty, language, body, and self, that is to say, about society? Some time ago, C.S. Lewis spoke of four loves: affection among familiar persons such as family members; friendship, or love between individuals as individuals, which was in his view the most noble and hence rare form of love; eros, or sexual love between lovers; and charity, love for one’s neighbors. Strictly speaking, however, all four loves are about relationships and the self’s engagement with them, rather than being an autochthonous ontology of the self as such. As Aristotle asked: “Do men love, then, the good, or what is good for them?” In other words, when we think about love, self’s integrity is tested and self and society are faced with each other.1
